Non Plus Ultra released Live And Let Live several months ago. It is a three-disc set covering Paul McCartney’s November 15th, 1993 appearance in the Tokyo Dome on the first two discs and the sound check on that day along with other rehearsal material. McCartney played five concerts in Japan on the New World tour in support of Off The Ground. Three in Tokyo (November 12th, 14th & 15th) and two in Fukuoka (November 18th & 19th).

Since VH1 sponsored the tour, almost all of the shows were professionally recorded and filmed including all five of the Japanese shows and parts of those tapes have been surfacing over the years. This serves somewhat of a swansong since after the Japan dates he would play eight shows in South America and wouldn’t tour again for almost a decade.

The November 15th show was released before on silver as Live And Let Live 1993 – Part 1 and Part 2 (TDA 11167 A/B), which is an early release containing the complete, very good sounding audience recording. Non Plus Ultra contains twenty-two out of thirty-two tunes, about two-thirds of the show, of a previously uncirculated professional recording.

For the missing ten tracks the label edits in the older audience recording for completeness. The sound quality is clear but is compressed and a deep echo on the drums. It is not anywhere near the quality of the 1990 soundboard recording released by the same label last year on Back To The Big Egg and the audience recording used to compliment this at times has more depth and dynamics.

The show is missing the opening ten-minute film and cuts in right at the beginning with the soundboard for “Drive My Car” and “Coming Up”. The recording of the latter song misses the clavinet giving its particular appeal on this tour however. The audience recording fades in for “Looking For Changes”. Paul says his opening words in Japanese before switching to English “it’s much easier for me.”

He introduces “Jet” which again is sourced from the audience recording. The soundboard cuts in after Paul’s introduction to “All My Loving” and runs through to and “Let Me Roll It”. “Peace In The Neighbourhood” comes from the audience recording and the soundboard picks up again for “Off The Ground” (which includes a reference to “Iko Iko”) and “Can’t Buy Me Love”.

The audience is used for Robbie’s bit and the soundboard comes in again for the following two numbers, “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and “We Can Work It Out”. “I Lost My Little Girl” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” come from the audience recording. “Hope Of Deliverance” is from the soundboard followed by “Michelle” from the audience.

The soundboard is used for “Biker Like An Icon”, the audience for “Here, There, And Everywhere”, and finally the soundboard for “Yesterday”. On the second disc, the audience recording is used for “My Love”, “C’mon People” and “Penny Lane” with the soundboard recording responsible for all the rest of the songs. The label handles the edits very well and the sonic quality is similar enough between the two sources to not cause too much discomfort, although the life in the audience recording sounds much nicer.

The third disc contains the video soundtrack for Paul’s various sound checks in Japan. The bulk comes from the preceding evening of November 14th, which was opened to the public. This was a fundraiser for the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) and was filmed and parts were broadcast on the “Christmas Special” aired on the BBC on December 24th, 1993.

This material was released previously on Paul Is Vision Disc 1 (Sandwich Records PIV-002) and Paul Is Vision Disc 2 (Sandwich Records PIV-003). Hey Tokyo! (KTS 250) on Kiss The Stone in 1994 is a strange release that the November 15th sound check tape, but is listed as being from November 12th and has fake cheering added.

Excellent quality video footage has been released from the sound check on the DVD Live In Tokyo edited with some songs from the November 12th show at the Tokyo Dome. This a mixed bag but does have rarities like “Lindy Lu” and “C Moon” both of which were not performed on this tour. The sound quality is uniformly excellent. The final track is the opening film from this show taken from the same audience recording used to augment discs one and two.

Why it wasn’t placed at the beginning of disc one where it belongs isn’t clear, but it good to have it somewhere in this collection. The artwork and design is inspired by Non Plus Ultra’s release Back To The Big Egg which this is sort of a sequel to. Unlike the earlier one, which is a masterpiece, this one is good but not great and will appeal to the completist. Overall this is a good release and worth seeking out.